How do you prevent water from freezing

[Cebarmlds]

Cookie tin water heater! we are in Minnesota- gets cold here this thing works!

 

[Mogli]

yeah get a heated dog bowl they work good i got mine at tractor supply company for $20

 

[undergroundchickens]

Quote:
This is what I do as well.

 

[Doormantnt]

Cookie tin heaters. One inside, and one out. The outside one I used block to make wind break and support the waterer. And no freezing....execpt when bulb burns out. But on my second year with them, and only on 2 bulbs.

GwenDellAnno---I understand your heater, but what does the 5 gallon jug dump into?? Any pics of "dispenser" portion that is sitting on heater??? I'm assuming it is a gravity system?

Thanks

TNT

 

[kmdsparrow]

I use a 5 gallon pail hanging with nipple feeders coming out of the bottom. We put a fish tank water heater in the pail. It lays on the bottom of the pail and has kept the water from freezing for these past few weeks and the weather has been pretty regularly in the 20's.

 

[Jx2inNC]

I've been looking into this as well...although they've started figuring out the ice and pecking through it to get to the water.

 

[ErinG]

I think a cookie tin heater is the easiest, but not the cheapest. I think that Jeffers have them the lowest I have seen. While waiting for ours to show up in the mail my boyfriend made a heater out of a clay flower pot, a light bulb and a silicone baking sheet (as a buffer between the warm/hot clay and the plastic waterer and also to make it more secure). We strapped the plastic waterer on top with wire and it worked fine.

 

[Alaska Juju]

We use a round pail heater....it wraps around the waterer and supplies a constant source of heat. We are EXTREMELY happy with this arrangement. We've tried everything else in the past, including the kicking the ice out in the morning and adding new hot water routine, which got pretty old, considering the water freezes up pretty quick here. We've been down to -36...not in the coop, but outside (& when it's -36 out, it's pretty chilly for our girls, inside they may be!)....and the water doesn't freeze. We also have 45 in our flock now, so that's a lot of water that gets consumed, and it's warm water when they drink it.

Getting about 12-20 eggs a day, even in these dark, dark, dark months!

This is what we bought, from one of our beekeeping suppliers:

http://www.mannlakeltd.com/ProductDetail.asp?idproduct=794&idCategory=8

It's expensive, but with our kind of temps, it's worth it.

 

[70monte]

I use a heated dog bowl so I don't have to worry about the chickens not having water.

Wayne

 

[LaurelRidgeDreams]

Quote:
I do the same unless the inside temp of the coop is below 20. Then I use a heated waterer. I've only use the electric waterer twice this winter. Last week the water in the black rubber pan started to freeze. I put very hot water in a small tupperware container and floated it in the water. this kept the water from freezing for quite a while.